Great! Mel gets to play Annie Oakley:



while I'm cast as Henry Higgins!

Ok,I've got tea up my nose.

But it was totally worth it!!!

You are precious Unwritten, you crazy thing

What on earth were you drinking?

HILARIOUS!!!!!!!

Actually Brainy, I could rock that blue and yellow dress!

Yes, yes you can rock it, NG.

I know right! My brain is def entertaining some days.

Not as entertaining as you people and your graphical skills though.

I haven't even figured out how to put up the smiley face icons.

Here you go UW.

Im sorry but what is IC. To many acronyms are used on this forum. But, how would I really know because I have never posted/read a forum before.

IC=Intimate conversation it's one of the EN emotional needs.

And here you go. Acronyms and Abbreviations

This is a question for those of you who are fully recovered.

When does the rollercoaster end?

I say this because, although I feel like we have been doing great the last couple of weeks, right before vacation I was talking about leaving! And now I feel good. Maybe next week? Who knows, we might not be able to get adequate UA time, H might be in a funk, I might be in a funk, ... and then I will feel like leaving again.

When does that end? When do you have stability again, where you know you are not going to be talking D next week, or the week after, or the week after that.

I feel like I have to take life day by day now, and have no confidence in the short term future much less the long term future. Today is good. Tomorrow? Anybody's guess.

I see this happen in a lot of other recovery threads, RQ, Letty...things are going good, then a few bad days and it doesn't sound like its working out, then its going good again.

I want off, my head is spinning.

Everyone needs full UA time, affair or no affair. When recovering it is critical. Why wouldnt you be able to get UA time? Proactively solve the problems before they arise. Be prepared!

Although, we have been doing good. I have been very loving and affectionate, even admiring to H. IDK why, probably because its fall and I LOVE cold weather, so I am in a stellar mood. Even when he is in a funk, which he was all weekend, I am in a stellar mood and do not let it affect me. The little devil tried to whisper in my ear once, when I tried to give H a hug and he pushed me away, he said 'UW, are you going to take that from him? f him you push HIM away.' I told the little devil to shove it and H thanked me many times over the weekend for persisting and having such a positive attitude even though he was being quite distant and aloof to me.

We had a nice date night on Saturday. I find that our date nights are times we talk about more intimate things, not A stuff necessarily but boundaries, complaints, etc. Don't know if thats good or not. Saturday I told H how I was disappointed in his lack of jealousy.

Now I have mentioned this before, but H has spent our M acting like he could care less what I do. I would LOVE for him to say 'he77 no youre my WIFE you are NOT talking to (fill in the blank of any random male friend).' That would make me feel so special, cared for, protected. Instead he seemed to care less, who I talked to, where I went, who I went with. Makes me feel the opposite of all those things.

So I had a breach in boundaries. When we got married I had a male 'friend' who I had been friends with for a couple yrs. He lived out of state and would fly in for business a couple times a yr, in addition to regular email/phn contact we would get together whenever he was in town. This was as friends only, although there was a mutual attraction. The first time this happened after I got married I asked H, 'J' is flying into town and wants to go out, how do you feel about that?' I WANTED him to say NO WAY but instead he said 'fine' and didn't even look at me. So I left, went out, no big thing. A few months later 'J' came into town again, same scenario. Only this time we went out for a romantic dinner, where I felt totally uncomfortable because it seemed very WRONG and then at the end of the evening he kissed me. I ended contact with 'J' after that, and told my H about what happened, which he seemed to care less about.

Fast forward probably 6 yrs. 'J' added me as a friend on FB. This was before MB, before boundaries, etc. and I accepted. We chatted a handful of times about nothing in particular, he had since gotten married and had a little girl. That was it. It has been a couple yrs since then and although he was a FB friend we have had no real contact, neither of us were posters and I never felt like looking at his profile or anything like that. I SWORE I deleted him from my friends list during the big dump I did earlier in this thread, when I learned about the beauty of boundaries. In actuality I have grown to dislike FB because I have seen so much infidelity associated with it, and hardly ever use it anymore. Not saying that means I can have male friends on there, just that I didn't notice he was still on there because I never am, don't read posts, etc.

Fast forward to last week, when I get a message from 'J' on FB. All it says is 'I am going to be in town for the first time since leaving (old company). Just overnight.' Now, it doesn't say he wants to get together, or even give me the date of his trip, but why else would he send it to me? I text H immediately, tell him verbatum what the message says, and ask him if he wants me to unfriend J and delete the message, or leave it for him to read (you know to make sure it says what I said it said or that I didn't respond, etc.). His response: "Who's "J"?

Now I know every detail of every woman he has EVER had any inappropriate contact, full name, current marital status, current location... I am a very savvy internet stalker it turns out. Keep your friends close and your enemies.... It floors me that he cares SO LITTLE he doesn't even remember the NAMES of any guys that have messed with HIS WIFE. Heck if that were me I would be responding to the woman who sent that message to my H, you better believe that.

Anyway, I told him how this made me feel. He just said we look at things differently. He said I am one to not trust someone until they earn it, he is someone who trusts someone until they lose it. I said, well I DID lose it! I am UNtrustworthy. He said he just feels like he will reestablish trust faster, which is why he doesn't check up on me, etc.

We discussed how of the two of us, I am WAY more wayward thinking than him, even though he is the one who had a PA. Because I am the one who has the serial cheater mindset of, I don't get addicted to any single person, I am addicted to having my needs met by multiple people period. I WANT him to be more vigilant, because I don't always trust myself. I mean I know right from wrong now, but I also have days where for whatever reason resentment is at an all time high and I think, why not? So far I have stopped myself, but IDK I worry about it, thus the nightmares about cheating.

I don't know where the question is in here, I guess there is none. Just wish H would be more jealous. I treat him like he's my property, and ya'll better believe that NO WOMAN will ever put her hands on my property again. Or he77 hath no furry like UW scorned. Word. Wish H was just a teensy bit like that with me.

Well, we had a 10 day family vacation with our 3 children all in one hotel room. Anyone who has been on a family vaca with 3 kids knows there is not a whole lot of R&R for mom and dad going on. Although we did manage SF in the bathroom a couple times. That is 10 days with NO UA time. We came back and kids started school the next day, which was a very busy week trying to get back into the swing of things. We have one kid who has ADHD and I think some kind of ODD along with that (oppositional disorder), undiagnosed but he has some serious over the top tantrums. He is 9 so I am not talking about a little child. Not normal tantrums, sometimes we wonder if he is possessed, they are that out of control and can go on for hours. He started doing better after the age of 7 and has had lapses over the last couple of yrs, including the last couple of weeks. On vacation we had 2 tantrums a day, and for the last couple of weeks since we have had several hours long tantrums, where he has to be monitored at all times. Any dates/drinks on the deck/walks, etc. have had to be cancelled because of this. Add to that both H and I had bad colds and were trying to go to bed early, etc. So that is our last two weeks, things that were unavoidable, to some extent. Just as an example.

We are working on getting the UA time every week, but there are things that are unavoidable, especially in a family of 5 and with little kids. At least we have a daughter who is babysitter age, and a large disposable income with which to pay her, which has SAVED us, IDK how those families with very young kids do it. IDK how we would have consistently done it back in the day we had young kids, no money for sitters, etc.

I'm not saying you can't work hard to make it a habit to do every week, but life WILL get in the way, sometimes. I'm just saying that in recovery, when those weeks come, it is SO EASY to have the little things become big things and want to just throw in the towel. Damaged love banks I suppose.

I guess thats the answer. When you are fully recovered you have invested enough to fill the love bank, and are consistently doing so. Then, when you have an issue arise that prevents you from adding to the love bank, you at least have so many deposits it doesn't immediately derail you like it seems to derail many of the people in R. But that makes sense because most of the people in R do not have full, solid love banks.

Also, regarding vacation I did proactively try to solve that, by arranging for an entire kid free weekend before we left on vacation. But H was in a serious funk that weekend and it was literally wasted. Even driving to and from picking up our kids (2 hour drive each way) we barely spoke to each other. Wasted.

Thats the other thing about R, is that you are dealing with such a mix of emotion and instability, never know what you're going to get and it can 'ruin' the UA time you plan if one person is having a hard day/weekend, etc.

That is rough, but remember just making each other enough of a priority to be around each other is affection. Never forget what IS being achieved.

Why not just ask him to protectively and proactively contact this guy?

If he doesn't mind. The idea doesn't have to originate from his jealousy.

He won't contact this guy, or any other guy. He is very non confrontational (in his home life, in business he is the exact opposite, which is strange).

He basically says it isn't a lack of jealousy but rather he just doesn't like the conflict so he just pretends he doesn't mind (and withdraws). But it is hard for me to not see it as a lack of caring.

Do I just chalk that up as personality difference between the two of us?

My H and I are approaching the 2 year mark of recovery in November. I don't know that I'd say we are "fully" recovered but we are doing well, consistently. I would say the rollercoaster has fewer hills - and smaller ones at that.

I think it's really important to know yourself - and your spouse. I know, for instance, times when I am more vulnerable to triggers or negative emotions. I try very hard to cut them off at the pass! I have also educated my H on these matters so that he is more able to help me. For instance, I've had problems sleeping the past few months with my herniated disk issues. When I tell him I've had little sleep, he seems to "intuitively" step up his efforts around the house. It's not intuitive though - it's because I've told him how overwhelmed I get around the house when I'm tired and not feeling well. He knows that just doing a few small things (laundry/ vacumming) helps me immensely and doesn't mind doing them.

He also knows when I am hormonal he needs to step up his efforts in the TLC dept. because that's when I tend to get sad/angry more easily about the A. Or - even when I'm not hormonal, if something pops up, he automatically goes into "deposit" mode. The other night, something came on tv that was a bad trigger. We didn't discuss it; H came into the living room and changed the channel. Later, I got treated to a very nice massage. (etc. lol)

The word I like to think of here is "care." When you "take good care" you are constantly keeping an eye out for the other person and how they are doing. You are keeping up the relationship maintenance to ensure it's in proper working order. When you do that, it's much easier to right the ship because adjustments are small.

I can't say I never have bad moments or hours (relationship wise) but I CAN say I don't have bad days anymore. And it's been a LONG time since I've thought twice about my decision to reconcile: so long ago that I can't even remember.

The biggest threat that I see to recovery is complacency, at least in my case. Sometimes it seems easy to let this or that go because it's "not that big of a deal," or whatever. I keep reminding myself the devil is in the details. There IS a difference between being vigilant and being paranoid that it's all going to go wrong if you aren't perfect.

I would also say that at some point, to be successful, you have to get rid of the thoughts of divorce (assuming you are both all in on the recovery plan). You have to both become buyers and looking to better the marriage rather than allowing the renter's mindset to set in. Although, I realize that the BS has the option for quite some time after A discovery - to decide he/she can't recover.

To me it seems that he is totally secure in your attraction to him and desire to stay married. He doesn't see any real threat to your relationship so he is not jealous.

Are there other ways in which he can meet these needs of yours?